Unlike most conversion stories, Buck came from the New Age to Catholicism. This is as idiosyncratic as it comes, since I’ve known too many who have attempted the inverse (myself included to some extent).
But some may say there is no conversion to New Age, since most just see it as a spiritual, but not religious abstraction where there is no club to join. While somewhat true, there are some principles that are implicit to New Age.
Buck defines New Age as a “Western (primarily Anglosphere) Synthesis of Pre-Christian world religion (absent Judaism). Plus: Twentieth-Century Imports from Secularism, Liberalism, Psychotherapy, Ecology, and the Esoteric. Minus: 20 centuries of Christian Theology and Tradition (particularly Catholic).”
This definition displays the Achilles heel for a movement that likes to see itself as holistic and inclusive. Right here, we can see there is some incoherence in a movement that denies its own intolerance or sees itself stripping out the “superfluous” from most religions. Moreover, much of New Age kowtows to worldly sensibilities, which often waters down the moral safeguards and implicit teleology found in tradition.
For those looking for a mystical aliveness, there is no question that New Age offers something from secular humanism. But as Buck acknowledges, New-Agers prefer to replace God with more banal, impersonal terms, such as being, energy, field, and consciousness. Not to mention, the intellectual rigor that gets lost in abstract and empty platitudes. This has a depersonalizing effect towards what it means to be truly human as “in the world but not of it.” Instead, a subtle bias towards being “of the world but not in it” gets emphasized.
Buck says, “All of this is to avoid the preconceived notions of traditional religion without really truly understanding traditional religion fully.” He does acknowledge that the legacy of Protestantism in the Anglo-American world and the liberal excesses in the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II has done a disserve for seekers of tradition. He also notes that the idea is “not go back to fundamentals but rather go forward with developing tradition.” Or as they say, mutatis mutandis.
For him, restoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the only option for the West. On this path, the mystical experience is where “fire meets with FIRE”… where “nothing is extinguished in the human personality but, on the contrary, everything is set ablaze.”
I definitely appreciate his conviction and the less-worn door he came through. There is an education in all of this.
No spiritual quest can progress very far without becoming religious. — Gerald G. May